


The Requiem Bell

by carolinecrane



Category: Haunted Mansion (Ride), Phantom Passenger That Wants A Ride Home (Urban Legend)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-01
Updated: 2015-10-01
Packaged: 2018-04-24 05:12:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4906801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carolinecrane/pseuds/carolinecrane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was a dark and stormy night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Requiem Bell

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DesertVixen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertVixen/gifts).



The rain crashed down in thick sheets, flooding the road in front of the car. Theo switched on his high beams, but the storm was too fierce for it to make a bit of difference. He considered pulling over and waiting it out, leaning forward in the driver's seat and squinting at the shoulder in the hope of spotting a good place to pull off for a few minutes.

That was when he saw her; a girl in a long white gown and hooded cape, standing much too close to the side of the road. He was nearly upon her before he realized she was there, her dress clinging to her form and glowing in his headlights so that she looked, for a second, nearly otherworldly. She was small, and at first he took her for a child, but what would a child be doing out in a storm like this one?

The thought of stopping sent a surge of fear through Theo, but before he was past her he came back to himself and slowed the car until finally he rolled to a stop a little way in front of her. There was no reason to be afraid of a girl who’d been caught out in the storm, and he could hardly leave her out here all alone.

Theo put the car in reverse and turned to squint through the back window, but before his foot found the gas pedal again, the back door opened and the girl climbed inside. She was drenched, of course, long hair sticking to her face and shoulders. Theo watched as she pushed the wet hood back from her face, then brushed hair from her wet cheeks before she smiled at him. Now that he could see her clearly, it was obvious she wasn’t a child at all, and he ignored another surge of foreboding.

“Thank you for stopping. I’ve been trying to get a ride for so long.”

“What are you doing out here?” Theo asked, peering beyond her into the darkness for any sign of a stalled car. All he saw was black, and the only sounds were the rain drumming the roof of the car, and his own breathing.

“My family will be so worried,” she said as though she hadn’t heard his question. “Would you mind giving me a ride home? It’s not far.”

“Yeah, sure,” Theo answered. He watched her in the rearview mirror for another moment, then he shook his head and eased the car back out onto the road. “Where do you live?”

“Oh, it’s just up the road a little ways,” she said, in a vague sort of voice that made Theo regret picking her up, just a little.

They drove a mile in silence, slower than Theo would have liked, but with the rain still falling so heavily he didn’t have a choice. Each time he glanced in the rearview mirror the girl was looking back at him, her dark eyes big and her whole being still glowing with a kind of incandescence. Theo told himself it was just a trick of the light, that the night and the lonely road were playing tricks with his imagination.

“I’m Theo,” he said after another mile went by. “What’s your name?”

“They call me Leota,” she answered, shifting her gaze to the dark window as she spoke. “Turn here.”

Theo nearly skidded off the road trying to make the turn he hadn’t seen approaching, but he managed to steer the car onto the road which was somehow even darker than the one they’d just left. They drove slowly down the center of the road, tires sinking a little into the dirt under them, and Theo prayed he wouldn’t get stuck out here and have to spend the night in his car.

“Almost there now,” Leota said in a quiet, sing-song voice. Theo looked back at her, but she was still staring out the window, and it was too dark to make out her expression.

The road stretched out in like a vast, dark ocean. There was no sign of a house in the distance, and tension balled in Theo’s stomach at the thought of what might lie in wait for him at the end of their drive. 

“Where did you say your house was again?”

“Just there,” Leota answered, a pale hand reaching over his shoulder to point at the road ahead. Theo looked in the direction she indicated, his heart pulse jumping at the sight of a grand house where a moment ago there had been only darkness. It was an old two-story mansion, with porches wrapping around both stories and every window glowing. Theo frowned and glanced in the rearview mirror again to find Leota staring back at him, a placid smile on her face.

He suppressed a shudder and drove as fast as he dared, finally pulling up in front of the brightly lit house. He shifted the car into park and glanced up at the porch, but there was no sign of anyone waiting anxiously for the girl’s safe return.

“Maybe I should come with you, just to make sure someone’s home,” he said, turning to look at her as he spoke, but to his surprise he found the back seat empty. 

Theo hadn’t heard the car door, but given the rain still relentlessly driving down on the roof, he could have missed it. He looked out at the yard, but there was no sign of her dashing through the rain to reach the porch. Surely she couldn’t have slipped inside already. Perhaps she’d gone around to the back door?

He considered leaving her to her fate, but his conscience stopped him from putting the car back into gear and driving away. Instead he cut the engine and tucked the keys safely into his pocket, then he took a deep breath and forced himself to open the car door and step out into the storm.

By the time Theo reached the porch he was soaked through, and he shivered as he rang the doorbell. Some moments later the front door swung open and Theo found himself staring up at a tall, gaunt man wearing a vaguely curious expression.

“Yes?”

“Hello,” Theo said, suddenly ashamed of himself for being so fearful. “I found your daughter on the main road and drove her home. She ran out of the car so quickly, I just wanted to make sure she got inside all right.”

For a moment the man just looked at him, curiosity fading to something closer to sorrow. He nodded in what Theo thought was a rather solemn way, considering the fact that Theo had brought his daughter home safely in such terrible weather.

“Poor, dear little Leota,” the man said. “Our Little Leota, that is what we always called her. Such a sweet girl, and such a tiny little thing. Her loss was terrible indeed.”

“Loss?” Theo said, his heart hammering faster now. 

“Oh, yes. Twenty years ago, on this very night. Struck by a car while trying to make her way home through the rain. She’s been trying to come home ever since, poor soul.” He paused for another moment of mournful silence before he looked up at Theo again. “But forgive me, you must be chilled to the bone. Do come in and have some tea.”

“No, that’s okay,” Theo answered, backing toward the porch stairs as he spoke.

“You’re sure? It’s no trouble, and the night is bleak.”

“I really have to be going,” Theo said. 

He turned and nearly ran down the stairs, hurrying across the lawn to his car. He fumbled for the keys, hands shaking so much that he nearly dropped them in his haste to start the engine and get away. When he finally managed to get them into the ignition he glanced in the rearview mirror, half expecting to find the ghost of Leota smiling placidly back at him. But there was no one there, and Theo started the car and drove away from the house as fast as he could.

~

The next morning dawned clear and bright. For a moment when he woke, Theo didn’t remember picking up a girl on the side of the road or driving her home only to discover that she was a ghost. The memory came back slowly, creeping in and poking at his consciousness until the whole night seemed like an absurd dream.

Theo laughed to remember the way he’d practically run from the house, then he blushed at the rude way he’d treated an old man with an overactive imagination. Surely the girl in his car hadn’t been the ghost of the man’s dead daughter. More than likely she was some drifter looking for a ride, and she’d heard the story of the dead girl and borrowed her name. That would explain her sudden disappearance the moment they arrived at the house; she couldn’t walk up to the front door and pretend to be Little Leota, not to the people who’d known her.

He was ashamed of the way he’d acted, running away when the old man had only offered him shelter from the storm. In the bright light of day it all seemed so much clearer, and Theo resolved to drive back to the house and apologize. At least he could ask forgiveness for disturbing the old man late at night, dredging up sad memories and then not even having the decency to stick around and listen to him talk for a while.

The drive took less time than he remembered, though there was no rain to blur his vision this time. He found the dirt road easily enough even though it wasn’t marked, and just a mile or so in he found the house. It was still two stories with wraparound porches, with a short drive leading up to the front door. But instead of the stately, well-lit mansion he’d seen last night, this place had the look of one long abandoned.

The front door was boarded shut, the grass overgrown and vines creeping up the porch rails to obscure the front of the house. Theo frowned and climbed out of the car, looking down the road in both directions in case he’d missed the house he’d seen only the night before. But there was nothing as far as the eye could see, and when Theo scanned the front yard he caught sight of something white fluttering in the scant breeze.

Theo crossed the yard and picked up the cloak, fingers running along the edge of the hood and a shiver running through him as he remembered the pale girl who wore it just the night before. Surely he hadn’t imagined her; she’d spoken to him, and not even the darkness of the night or the storm was enough to explain a talking hallucination.

He looked toward the house, gaze falling on the second floor just in time to catch a flicker of movement. Theo stared for another moment or two, but when he didn’t see it again he told himself it was just a trick of the light.

He was about to turn back toward his car when the sound of a door slamming startled him. Theo scanned the house, but the front door was still boarded up tight. A movement toward the back of the house caught his eye and he turned in time to see something white disappear around the corner. Theo glanced down at the cloak in his hand and thought of its owner. She was an adult, certainly, but she’d been so small that he couldn’t imagine there was anything to be afraid of, even if she was hiding in the house waiting to play some kind of trick on him.

The old man could be lurking around, but he was hardly more dangerous than the girl. Theo steeled himself against a rush of nerves and started forward, around the side of the house to the back garden. Two tall live oaks canopied the yard, shading the back of the house and muting the bright sunlight. 

The lawn was large and deep, and scattered around the grass at random was a series of gravestones. They were weathered, as though they’d been standing in the yard for many years, with weeds growing up around their bases and some of them beginning to sink into the ground. Right in the middle of the little graveyard was a stone angel, and Theo knew it was his imagination, but she looked a little bit like Leota.

He turned back to the house, his gaze falling on a small door that stood slightly ajar. It would be foolish to go inside, he knew. He felt himself being pulled toward the house anyway, and a few moments later he was pulling the door open and slipping inside.

Despite the bright sun outside the house was bathed in a dull gloom, perhaps even darker for the brightness of the day. Barely any light managed to penetrate the darkness inside, and even after a few minutes Theo had to strain to see much further than a few feet in front of him. He stood just inside the door, eyes scanning the darkness, and when he caught sight of some sort of light at the far end of the room his pulse began to race.

“Hello?” he called, voice trembling as he took a few steps forward. “Is there someone there?”

Slowly a form began to take shape in the darkness. It flickered into being before Theo’s eyes, a strange, glowing white light becoming more and more solid until Theo recognized the girl he’d met the night before.

“Leota?” His voice was barely a whisper, but in the dead silence of the house it sounded far too loud to his ears. 

She didn’t answer, but it seemed as though she drew closer, even though Theo hadn’t seen her move. The long white dress and flowing hair would have given her away even if he didn’t remember her face, but that was something Theo was sure he’d never forget. Leota was beautiful, glowing even in the darkness. The old man’s words came back to him as he took a step forward, then another. _Her loss was terrible indeed._ But she looked so real, alive and smiling at him as though she had a secret she couldn’t wait to tell.

“I found your cloak outside,” Theo said, lifting his arm to display the white fabric still gripped in his hand. “Leota?”

“I’m so happy you returned,” she said, her hand raised to beckon him closer. Theo moved forward as though propelled by some invisible force, gaze locked on Leota’s enigmatic smile. He was almost close enough to reach for her when the floor gave way underneath him, and the last thing he heard as he fell was Leota’s voice welcoming him home.


End file.
